NEW YORK – Over 30,000 participants were estimated to have taken part in Sunday’s “Celebrate Israel” parade in New York City, commemorating Israel’s 63rd year of independence with a march up Fifth Avenue from 57th to 74th Streets.
The Empire State Building was lit up in blue and white Saturday night as a tribute to Israel, and blue and white decorations were made the prevailing color along Fifth Avenue.
Additionally, an inaugural four-mile race through Central Park to commemorate Israeli independence prior to the parade was sponsored by the New York Road Runners and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.
Over 5000 runners participated in the morning run.
The parade used to be known as the “Salute to Israel” parade, but this year, the name was changed to Celebrate Israel to focus on celebrating Israel’s diversity and strengths. This year’s parade organizers made an effort to touch base with Israelis living in the New York area.
Participants in the parade included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; New York Governor Andrew Cuomo; New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand; Israeli Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein; Israeli Consul General Ido Aharoni; and Grand Marshal Joseph Sitt, the New York real-estate developer and CEO of Thor Equities.
NOTE!!!!
One special guest participant was missing, due to having been denied a visa to travel to the parade. Gheorghes (George) Exantus, a Haitian-champion salsa dancer, had had a leg amputated because of damage from the 2010 earthquake. Israeli doctors and physiotherapists treated him and, through prosthesis and rehabilitation, enabled Exantus to dance again within eight months.
Exantus was to participate in the parade and dance at a concert afterwards, however, last week, the US embassy in Haiti denied Exantus a travel visa to the US, fearing Exantus would try to immigrate illegally. New Jersey Senator Robert Menendezappealed the decision, but to no avail.
WATCH GEORGE IN THIS AMAZING VIDEO
The parade was broadcast on live television for the first time, and is said to be the largest pro-Israel celebration in the world.
Some people carried signs decrying US President Barack Obama’s recent Middle East speech.
Thanks Dweller, I had always thought the NYT a liberal, but respectable publication — at least in its past. I never knew how
wrong I was.
The head of CAMERA once spoke to my ACT for America chapter and I believe he said the NYT was the best about printing retractions of their misprints of facts on the Mid-East.
No need for shock.
The anti-Zionist, American Council for Judaism was formed in 1942 solely to fight AGAINST the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine; one of its founding members was Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of NYT.
What The Times did during the Shoah, Dawg, will leave you gasping for breath. Consider Laurel Leff’s book. (She’s an investigative journalist who has worked for the Wall Street Journal and The Miami Herald):
Laurel Leff, BURIED BY THE TIMES: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper. Illustrated (Cambridge U. Press, 2005).
From Robert Leiter’s May 15, 2005, review:
“Leff catalogs in grim, ever-mounting detail how little attention the Holocaust received in The Times and how, when it was covered, the stories were generally buried in back pages. Stories about the slaughter of Jews in Austria and Italy in 1943, for instance, appeared on Pages 6 and 35 respectively.
“Nor was much editorial space allotted to the subject, even after it was clear that the ‘atrocity stories’ were not exaggerations, as had earlier been feared. The publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, comes in for considerable and often justifiable criticism. Like many other Jews of the period, he had a troubled relationship with his Jewishness and was outspoken in his opposition to Zionism.
“All this led him to make unfortunate journalistic decisions as he strove to insure that the paper was not perceived as favoring any one group, the Jews especially… ”
No need — to this very day — to ever be shocked at what The Times does, or fails to do.
No need whatsoever.
For Herb Glatter (#1): for many years now the NY Times masthead should be understood as “All the News that Fits”
Laura says: Anyway, Weiner is a disgusting pervert. I can’t even imagine any woman or man wanting to touch any part of him.
So the NY Slimes didn’t cover the pro-Israel parade. Isn’t that a shocker.
This too was Howard Stern’s complaint one time.
Anyway, Weiner is a disgusting pervert. I can’t even imagine any woman wanting to touch any part of him.
he tried to get a resolution passed aiming to block the mega sale of weapons to the Saudis. He failed. So much for Israeli support in the congress!
Three congressional Democrats are seeking support for an effort to block a major U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia that Israel reportedly backs.
Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) and Chris Carney (D-Pa.) circulated a letter Sept. 15 asking fellow lawmakers to sign on to legislation that would block the $60 billion sale, which has yet to be formally announced.
“Saudi Arabia has a history of financing terrorism, is a nation that teaches hate of Christians and Jews to their schoolchildren, and offered no help to the U.S. as gas prices surged during the spike in oil prices,” the letter said.
Saudi individuals – some close to the royal family – have financed terrorist groups, but the regime has not.
Also expressing reservations about the deal was Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FIa.), senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Israel reportedly has singed off on the sale, the most expensive arms deal ever, to be spread out over five to 10 years.
The deal includes 84 new F- 1 5 fighter planes, and nearly 200 Apache, Black Hawk and Little Bird helicopters, as well as upgrades for 70 other fighter planes.
Israeli defense firms could make tens of millions of dollars on the Saudi arms sale by manufacturing certain key components of the Saudi F- 15s
Meanwhile, the administration is heavily lobbying senior Congress members who for now have blocked planned defense assistance for Lebanon.
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), who chairs the foreign operations subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, blocked the assistance.
The Associated Press reported that the Obama administration has been assuaging Lowey and other members about the planned $100 million in defense aid since August, when a Lebanese officer opened fire and killed an Israeli officer on the Israeli side of the border. Israel returned fire and killed two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist.
CONGRATULATIONS to all of those that celebrated with us Eretz Israel return to being a greal place to all JEWS. And to all friends even if not Jews.
There I was slowly approaching the Shavuot holiday with warm memories of the whooping the herds of islamics got trying to rush the borders and you inform me the nyt did not cover the NY celebrations. That hoit me deeply. Imagine that, good ole Tom not around to do what it does so well. As soon a I remember what that one does well I’ll add it to my comment…
The facts as well as rumors about Anthony Weiner’s private life now are rapidly surfacing in the USA. His wife, Huma Abadin, is a member of an Indian Moslem family. She was raised in salafist Saudi Arabia, and for some years has been the secretary of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The two of them — Clinton and Abadin, rather than Weiner and Abadin — seem all but inseparable. The nastier examples of a major bunch of Internet rumor mills in this country has tagged her as Butch Clinton and her almost attached at the hip Moslem secretary.
How did a Brooklyn-based New York Jewish congressman come to marry a salafist Moslem, assuming that is what she truly is? A real conspiracy theorist would probably say that Hillary helped arrange it so as to stop the nasty public speculation over her personal relationship with her secretary. There are some politicians I never, ever trusted. One of these was the execrable James Earl Carter. Next came George Berbert Walker Bush. Then Hillary Clinton. And now, Barack Hussein Obama II.
As for Congressman Weiner — he of the outstanding weiner — he presently is saying he will not resign his congressional seat. If his intentions are as unbending as his now-famed tool, his presence going into the national elections next year is bound to be a net drain on Democratic Party efforts to take back control of the US House of Representatives. Which is one reason that people as cruel as I am will not be demanding his resignation until he causes all those folks some immense political damage.
Life is strange, but less so than many of public figures whom we take for granted.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Yes but for what it’s worth he spoke out more than just recently against Obama’s anti-Israel stances.
That being said, he’s no different than anyone else supporting a 2 state solution, Ehud Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu included.
Didn’t Wiener shill forf Obama in ’08
You’ve got to be kidding me? The NYT ignored a 30K strong demonstration in support of Israel? I wonder who owns the New York Times these days?
Why don’t they ever organize demonstrations like these in Los Angeles? I’d show up for something like that and I’m sure most of the members of all the Act for America chapters in Southern California would as well (and they would get the word out).
I read on Drudge Report that everyone in New York Jewry was there with the notable exception of (still?) US Representative Anthony Weiner; he of the now-immortal twittered weiner. I understand that among other things, he was using his online account to complain that Jewish women could not or would not give proper head, as appropriate for the sexual appetites of aristocrats such as Saint Anthony. Or did I misread the news reports?
Well, whatever. Everybody gets the kind of government they truly deserve. Everybody gets what’s coming to him.
In any case, chalk up another Demlib who bites the dust.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
interesting to note that the ny times did not cover the parade – what happened to: “All the news that’s fit to print”, NY Post, Daily News, CBS, NBC Fox all covered the wonderful turnout.